


Red spider lily

by Kangoo



Series: April Bouquet [21]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Osiris repressing his emotions like a champ, Unreliable Narrator...ish?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23743564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kangoo/pseuds/Kangoo
Summary: Do you ever think about the last time you’ll ever see someone?
Relationships: Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)
Series: April Bouquet [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685779
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Red spider lily

**Author's Note:**

> theme: never to meet again

Do you ever think about the last time you’ll ever see someone?

There’s always a last time, though it’s a rare chance to be able to recognize it when it happens. One day you go your separate ways for the last time, and you might not even know it. The few lucky enough to say goodbye knowing they will never get the chance to say hello again rarely appreciate it for the gift it is.

Osiris didn’t use to.

They’re Guardians. Death is a familiar to them as it is only a distant and short-lived possibility. It’s pointless to think about it when it happens so rarely. Hell, out of all the people he knows well enough to care, he’s the one most likely to die. The Infinite Forest isn’t a forgiving place and the Vex would love nothing more than to finally put an end to his meddling, probably.

Then Saint enters the Forest after him and he finds himself… wondering. Surely he’s out there somewhere, but weeks, months, years passed and Osiris still doesn’t find him. At first he didn’t care — if Saint was here to bring him back to the Tower he wasn’t interested, and anything else wasn’t pressing enough to tear him away from his research.

It’s been years though and he’s starting to worry.

Saint isn’t dead. But he sure isn’t making it easy to prove it.

With time his search grows… Sagira would say _frantic_ , but he likes to think he’s calmer about it than that. Still, he hastens his pace, sends out more reflections, spreading himself thin. He doesn’t like to imagine Saint stuck here in the forest and the City left defenseless without him.

More than that though, he wants to see him again. Wants to touch him, reassures himself that he’s alive and well like so few things are in the flickering timelines of the Forest. Wants to yell at him for being foolish and not letting Osiris work in peace, and maybe then kiss him, if Saint doesn’t punch him in retaliation first. He wants to send Saint on his way with a _we’ll meet again_ rather than a _goodbye_ and a slammed door, the way he did last time.

But he has to find him before he can leave him again.

Osiris doesn’t find Saint (he never will).

He finds a tomb instead.

His body is suspended in the air as if held by invisible string and shrouded in light. The accolades tied to his armor float lightly around him, sometimes fluttering as if agitated by an impossible breeze. They almost give the illusion of life, of a chest rising and falling with breath.

Osiris looks at them and thinks _strips of fabric are easy to fake_. Even their placement, perfect down to the inch, could be explained by the Vex’s perfect, mathematical memory.

A face is harder to fake, but not impossible. He tells himself this and refuses to reach out for him even as he longs to cradle it in his face and sees violet eyes brightening with life. There’s no point to it if it’s a copy after all.

(He hopes, more than he’s ever hoped for anything, that this is another lost timeline, rather than the one he has been walking for his whole life.)

“Osiris...”

His eyes stay locked on the body-that-cannot-be-Saint’s, and Sagira lets out a sigh. She does what he cannot bring himself to do and flies to him, shell spinning slowly as she observes the body.

The silence takes a presence of its own, a weight not unlike that of the world. Osiris refuses to bend under it, to let it lead him astray. It can’t be—

“It’s him,” she says, voice dim in resigned grief. “I’m sorry.”

He steps back. Swallows past his heart, stuck in his throat. He turns on his heels and walks away.

Sagira doesn’t stop him. She transmats back at his side, close enough to be felt but not so much that she touches him. He thinks a part of him (distant, numbed by a feeling he doesn’t want to put a name on) is grateful for it.

The ground gives away under his feet, the familiar vertigo of the Forest shifting, and he stands for a long time here, staring at nothing.

He doesn’t remember what the last thing he said to Saint was, he realizes. He thinks it might have been something casually cruel, born from resentment and justified frustration. He hopes he’s wrong. He hopes his last words were _I love you_ , even though they have never used these words as farewell before. It would have been a good habit to take back then. It would have led to fewer regrets. But he’s never been open enough to say them often, has he? He’s always preferred to show it instead, until he _didn’t_ — until he ran into the Forest and Saint was stupid enough to go after him without understanding what he was doing.

The Forest took Saint from him. He’ll make it give him _back_.

His form splinters into Reflections, glowing briefly before scattering through the timelines. Sagira lets out another sigh and disappears again. He can still feel the weight of her judgment in his mind.

He wishes she would understand that he doesn’t have to mourn — not when Saint is still out there somewhere, safe and sound in a timeline where Osiris was fast enough in finding him. He only has to find him, and to bring him home.

It will be good to say _hello_ to him again.

**Author's Note:**

> come haunt me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/2Fast2Kangoo) or [tumblr](https://youngster-monster.tumblr.com/)


End file.
